


i grip even tighter the weapon held in my hands as i plot to bring your ending

by JenelleLucia



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Lovers To Enemies, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), hi y'all im back :3, it's not spoilery so it's fine ???, lots of ballroom dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20621375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenelleLucia/pseuds/JenelleLucia
Summary: “promise me that you’ll be good for me?” edelgard / claude, pre to post timeskip and with something that in the end, was never meant to be.





	i grip even tighter the weapon held in my hands as i plot to bring your ending

Claude believes the rumours that Edelgard was a capable dancer, especially when he’s sweeping her across the dance floor so easily and that she follows his every step. Her eyes never stray from his and...it’s a little daunting, really. She’s got that focused look on her face, he thinks; it’s that same look that she has on the battlefield. He’s seen it firsthand when crossing weapons with her. It’s terrifying.

Despite all of that, though, her touch is gentle -- _ delicate _, even, and it surprises him. To the others dancing around them, They’re sure that he’s the one leading. It looks like it, sure, and Claude was pretty well known for keeping façades up, and the truth (at times) down. But no, absolutely not, she was the one leading him and he was following behind. 

“You know, princess,” he notes, and that makes her look soften just a bit. “That...menacing look on your face isn’t really meant for a ballroom.” 

“Hm,” Edelgard hums softly in response. She closes her eyes and sighs, nose slightly turned up in the air. It’s adorable, really. “Me being the one to lead you around isn’t really meant for a ballroom either.” 

That makes Claude grin. It’s a nice try at some sort of comeback. “Maybe not, but everyone says that you’re a capable dancer.” 

“Is that so?” 

“I mean, I believe it. You’re leading me around the ballroom at every turn!” It’s ironic when he says that, because _ he’s _ the one who twirls _ her _instead. “I could get used to this.” 

“Very funny. Now keep dancing.” 

“Duly noted, princess.” 

(He sees her relax slightly as she leads him around some more, and there’s a change of pace and that allows him to do so instead, much to her surprise.

Edelgard doesn’t seem to mind at all.) 

. 

They’re not so tired of the ball. 

(but they are tired of the prying eyes and gossip, so they escape to the goddess tower.)

They sit there in the dark, with faint moonlight seeping in through the cracks of the goddess tower and they can catch glimpses of each other. Edelgard’s very aware that Claude’s sitting close to her; she can smell that earthy scent from when the rain hits that sticks to their shoes after running through the grass, she’s entirely aware of when they share laughs as they bump shoulders. She’s entirely aware of _ everything _ and at the moment _ everything _makes sense. 

“So, princess, tell me --” Claude’s voice echoes off the walls of the tower, and she prompts him to lower his voice. “Sorry, sorry. Anyways, do you have a dream?” 

Edelgard does not think much of dreams. Like her siblings, she expected to have died because the experiments were too much; what were dreams to someone who was dead? She’s here now, she supposes, with _ Claude _of all people (and she finds that she doesn’t mind in the slightest; he makes for a rather good conversationalist), telling him her hopes and dreams because she’s not dead and since she’s not dead she has them. 

“I just...I want to live out the rest of my days in the countryside,” she gives it some thought, but to claude it sounds so..._ final _. “I’ll have to live out there alone if I have to, but...that’s my dream.” 

Claude purses his lips in response, and he thinks what he’s about to say over, too. His eyes adjust to the darkness and the dim light, and the dim light shines on Edelgard. There’s a thoughtful look on her face; it makes her look..softer, really. He’s aware of her closeness, and he’s even more aware that their fingers are only centimeters apart _ and if he could just _

(He moves them first, and Edelgard’s intertwine with his.) 

“I think that’s a nice dream,” he finally tells her, and he sees her shake her head. “What?” 

“It’s simple.” 

“Nah, don’t put down your dreams like that.” 

That makes Edelgard sit back slightly, her hands and arms outstretched behind her as support. Her gaze turns upwards, and Claude follows suit. She’s not always this open; he’s here lending an ear, and she supposes she’s grateful for it. 

“I just wish I could go somewhere and gorge on sweets and not care about all of this.” He never really imagined her as the type to want to do things like that in the first place. She doesn’t let go of his hand as they speak. 

“What? About the superficiality of nobility?” He’s not wrong about that. For all their lives, it’s followed them just about everywhere. 

“That, yes, and the expectation. I live up to it to the best of my ability and yet…” 

(_ the top is a very lonely place. _) 

“It’s a lonely path and it’s the one I’ve been given.” Everything about Edelgard, Claude thinks, sounds so..._ final. _The present sounds like “what could have been”’s and the future seems so far off and yet she speaks of all of it with such finality that he really wonders where she is and where she has yet to be. Maybe to her, there was no present. 

“You can choose to walk that path alone,” he responds, and that makes Edelgard turn her head to look at him. Lavender meets emerald, and he’s smiling -- the smile that never meets his eyes actually _ does _, and it startles her. “You don’t always have to, but you can choose it.” 

“What do you mean?” Lavender tears away from emerald and her gaze rests on her lap instead. “I won’t...be able to otherwise.” It’s so ominous in the way she says it, but Claude chooses to ignore it for now. He decides to come back with something else. 

“Hm...you’re wrong.” He sees her perk up slightly. Lavender meets emerald once more. 

“Oh?” Edelgard decides to press on further, then closing the distance between them. She’s peering closely at him now, searching his gaze for something, _ anything _, otherwise. He’s unfazed. “Is it because I can choose to walk my path alone, as you said?” That makes him shake his head. “Then what?” 

“You always do things alone, princess. What if I want to be the one who wants to follow you?” 

She blinks in surprise at his sudden confession, and her heart rings in her ears for but a moment. She calms it though. The path that he thinks he wants to follow is the one she wants. She knows that he won’t like it in the end. “You don’t want to. My path...isn’t something anyone with a sound mind can really follow. You don’t want the thorns to prick you as well.” 

Claude smiles -- it’s another one of those smiles that reach his eyes and it’s oh _ so _brilliant -- and that makes her heart beat faster. “Anything for you.” 

He tastes of Almyran pine needles and sweat. His lips are surprisingly soft, she finds, and Edelgard fumbles with the kiss and it’s awful and it’s awkward but Claude doesn’t seem to mind. They find a steady rhythm after a little bit and it’s like magic, incomparable to the one that she’s been taught at home and the academy. 

“You’re way too good for me,” she murmurs breathlessly as they pull away, and he looks absolutely adorable with flushed cheeks and a dazed gaze in her direction. It must have been his first kiss, too. 

“Huh?” he asks. She lifts a hand to cup his face gently, and lavender meets emerald once again. Claude hates that he can’t read what’s in her gaze. 

“Keep being good. Please?” 

“Edelgard, I don’t know what that means --” Claude very much hates that he can’t read what’s in her gaze. There’s love and something else behind it, but he can’t pick it up, and he settles for worrying later than wondering now. Instead he pulls her close to him, and his lips press back onto hers, peppering one kiss after another _ after another _. She kisses him back with just as much fervor, other hand reaching up to cup his face as well, and in turn he holds her so delicately. 

“You have to promise me. You’ll keep being good for me,” she pulls away. He purses his lips and considers his answers. 

“I have no idea what this means, but…” 

“Promise me, Claude.” There’s a sense of urgency when she says so. Claude hates where this is going. 

“...I promise.” 

. 

“You were always such a capable dancer.” 

“The rumors were as you believed.” 

They say nothing, but instead they move together like they would any other dance. Claude’s gotten better since the very first time; Edelgard tries her best not to act surprised, as he’s the one who sweeps her around the ballroom. Garreg Mach is long gone, and her palace in Enbarr is their floor now. They dance as if five years changed absolutely nothing, and at the same time, it has. 

“Is this what you meant when you said that I was too good for you?” he breaks the silence that their steps clicking against marble could not, and he looks away. “There are so many ways that we can fix this, princess. You could surrender, and we can work together to bring back Fódlan to what it used to be --” 

(Edelgard looks away from him, and he assumes that that’s her answer.)

“You said it yourself.” she stands up a little straighter and her hand holds tight against his sleeve. “You’re too good for me. I don’t deserve you.” Claude frowns, but he keeps dancing with her anyway. He’s the one who leads them both, slowly, carefully, and ever so the same. 

“We can backpedal, Edelgard.” And there’s a certain hardness and sweetness to the way he says her name, and the emperor loves both. A last kiss was all she had given him before they parted at the goddess tower, never speaking of anything after that. “We can be together, you know. Fix this mess...free Fódlan.” He knows that she wouldn’t want that. She’s too far ahead to go back now; that’s how she always was. 

“We must keep pressing forward, Claude,” the way she says so is so gentle, and yet so hardened, as she had in five years’ time. “What good will it do Fódlan if we keep moving backward?” She shakes her head, angling the dagger that she holds in her other hand and pointing at his back. Claude’s very aware of it being there; he angles the arrow in his own hand to her side. He keeps his hand in that, too. 

(It’s a dangerous game they have there going on there, really.)

“Strike me down.” It’s delivered as an order, not a request. Claude swallows. 

“You know I can’t do that.” The arrow in his hand is something otherwise. 

“You were always too good.” 

It’s a back and forth between them as the night begins to draw to a close, almost like a curtain. Claude’s beginning to understand the finality in just about what Edelgard does; he comes to the conclusion that he wouldn’t understand it enough, so he ends up pulling her flush up against him. The dagger and the arrow are still aimed at each other. 

“Edelgard.” he takes a step back just as she takes a step back. “I need you.” 

“You promised me you would keep being good,” she responds as they move forward together. They move back and forth, back and forth, in battle, in banter, in dance, too. It’s bittersweet, really. “And because you’re good, then I’ve cemented myself as...what’s bad for you.” 

In his mind, it was never that way. “I can help you be good.” 

“I was never good, Claude.” he hates the way that he’s smiling at her. It’s full of love, and when lavender meets emerald they’re soft and for a moment, he thinks -- _ knows _ \-- that he just can’t do it. He hates that her smile fades so fast, and that she hardens just like that. “Strike me down now or I’ll have to do it myself.” 

There’s silence between them, but the only thing speaking for them is the way they step against marble. She reaches a free hand up to his face, peering at him for a moment. 

“Don’t look at me that way.” _ How can’t he? _ He wants to ask. He lets her continue. “If there was one thing that made me happy all this time, it was the thought of you.” 

“You can’t do this to me, princess.” His voice softens, almost pleading with her. She’s selfish, sure; she’s not selfish enough to do that. He believes in it. Claude allows Edelgard to pull him down, acutely aware of the butt of her dagger being exactly what pushes his head down to meet hers. He remembers what’s about to happen. This happened five years ago. 

“Come on,” she whispers softly, and he closes his eyes. “Be good for me.” 

(Their lips touch once more. Dawn finally breaks.) 

**Author's Note:**

> HI I'VE BEEN IN 3H MODE THE WHOLE TIME. 
> 
> i worked on this in collaboration with one of my lovely friends, ceri (@kingceri) on twitter! the art piece that they originally made was actually NOT for this fic, but we decided to work together on it (so they doodled the og piece that you can check out on their twitter, i wrote a little somethin' ehehe :3) so this is for you, ceri, ily :3 
> 
> i hope you all enjoy this + thank you so so much for reading !! come yell at us abt edelclaude on twitter: @jenellexlucia + @kingceri :eyesemoji:


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